Merry Christmas

 I Would Like To Wish All My Followers, And Visitors To My Blog
                A Very Merry Christmas And

                                                      A Happy New Year
All The Very Best, Gordon. 

Swans and Geese

Another keen frost last night with another sunny day to follow, wall to wall blue sky, but bitter cold. After a quick walk with the Westies and a look in at the flood area, where there was a few hundred Lapwings, and Fieldfare & Redwings in the nearby field. I decided to head up to Cardurnock area to see if there was any signs of the Red-breasted Goose that is being seen with the Barnacle Geese. I decided to go via Skinburness to give the marsh a quick scan, as it happened there was nothing doing there, but what I found as I drove along the Calvo road more than made up for that, because I found two fields full of these----

Whooper Swans, with the odd one or two Mutes with them. Its pointless doing any cropping of these pics because the spectacle of such a mass would be lost.

It was an awesome sight, I've never seen so many Whoopers in such a concentration, I estimate there was a least 500 possibly more.

Now as if this spectacle wasn't enough, the next thing the sky is filled with geese, and amazingly not Barnacle geese but Pink-footed Geese thousands of them. I have had reports from other people that there are a lot hanging round Cumbria, normally they would be much further South in Lancashire.

Some of the pinkies were landing which gave me the chance of a couple of flight shots

Next I moved on to Cardurnock where there was thousands of  Barnacle Geese, a Conservative estimate would put the figure at around 6000 +

Foreground Barnacle Geese, small dots mid pic. are Golden Plover

Again Golden Plover mixing in with the Barnies.

More Golden Plover , this time with sheep, each time they where too far away for decent shots, and I didn't have my digi equipment with me.  

 By now I'm shivering , so it time to head home, and not a  Res-breasted goose to be found by anyone while I was there.

Penrith Light Festival

I'm a bit behind with this set of photos as the festival was last Sunday, plus its a bit of change from birding pics I hope you like the few pics I took.

There was a few samba bands playing , and lots of festive stalls in the square.